It’s time for a JediDefender mini-review by yours truly. This time, I’ll be looking at the 2012 Movie Heroes Trade Federation MTT.

How do you rile up the Star Wars collector fan base? Give them a brand new “Class III”, big-sized vehicle straight from the movies - and then tell them it’s from The Phantom Menace and will cost 30% more than they’re expecting to pay.

The 2012 Movie Heroes Trade Federation MTT is an interesting beast. As a toy, it’s fantastic. It comes with twenty-one pack-in figures. It’s packed with sound clips from the movie and the Clone Wars series. It’s got a fully motorized droid rack to deploy sixteen Battle Droids. All three of my boys (ages 2-6) LOVE this thing with hours spent deploying and retracting the droid rack. So what’s the problem?

Well, as previously alluded to - it’s retailing for at least $130, up to $180 at some oth-R retailers, and that’s at least $30-40 more than the AT-TE or AT-AT retail price. And for many boxed collectors, that’s a hard pill to swallow for something that’ll never be opened. I feel your pain on that one. But, at the same time, you can see what Hasbro was trying to do. It costs a bit more, but with twenty-one pack-in figures (20 droids and Obi-Wan Kenobi), you also get an instant army to fill up the rack. A cheaper price might be nice, but then you’d have had to spend extra on droids to fill it up.

So basically it comes down to cost. At $130, it’s a hard pill to swallow. But if you can find a deal that brings it closer to the $100 of the AT-TE or AT-AT, it’s an awesome deal. I managed to find a great “less than $100” deal at Target.com (and others have found great deals at Amazon.com as well). At $100 or so, it easily surpasses the play value of the AT-TE or AT-AT thanks to the included droids and the motorized bits. Sure, some of the droids don’t have much (if any) articulation, but all they really have to do is stand in the deployment rack and look good. They do that admirably... plus it doesn’t hurt that I’ve got another sixteen VC78 Battle Droids to crew my MTT.

Final Grade from our focus group (me and my three sons):
At $130, a solid C+ for effort. But at $100 or less like I paid, an A-. Not perfect, but a really fun toy.